Nations: Curry's intention to teach safer hits

By Jeff Nations - jnations@nvdaily.com

Buddy Curry's idea of safety on the football field boiled down to one simple concept -- be the hitter, not the hittee.

By and large, it was a useful and mostly effective strategy for a man who spent eight bruising seasons as a middle linebacker for the NFL's Atlanta Falcons. In on the majority of hits from his spot in the middle of the action, Curry administered plenty of licks on opposing backs and receivers during his long run as a professional.

Turns out, the Danville native was doing it wrong the whole time.

Curry, who teamed with NFL great Lawrence Taylor at the University of North Carolina before becoming a second-round draft pick of the Falcons in 1980 and earning the NFL's Defensive Rookie of the Year honors, was in Woodstock last week to kick off promotions for his upcoming Shenandoah County Youth Football Camp slated for July 10-13 at Central High School in Woodstock.

Through his "Kids & Pros" football camps -- the Woodstock clinic will be one of about 20 spread over five states this year -- Curry and former Falcons teammate Bobby Butler stress teaching the fundamentals of individual positions, but also life lessons for the campers.

To do that, Curry recruits past and current NFL players to drill his charges -- generally five to seven, mostly living in the area where he holds his camp.

"What we find is that the NFL players have a unique platform, that they have a good mouthpiece to the kids and to the parents," Curry said. "So what began at one camp in 2002, we did at 20 camps and clinics last year in five states."

Open to players ages 7 to 13, the four-day camp offers a rare chance to work closely with a former professional athlete.

In addition to the on-field instruction each day, one of the camp instructors will share their life story at the end of the day with the campers. It's a format Curry came up with as he coached his own sons through youth football.

"We've talked to several guys in this area," Curry said. "We'd really like to have a staff where it'd be me and Bobby, and five or six other guys from here. Because at the end of the day, we're like evangelists. We're going to come in, and the community's going to really get it, hopefully, that playing youth sports or playing any kind of sports is more than just X's and O's and wins and losses. It's about developing young men."

Central athletic director Kenny Rinker met Curry by phone this past summer, then at one of his camps in Lynchburg. Soon, they started talking about bringing "Kids & Pros" to Shenandoah County.

"This is not a Shenandoah County thing," Rinker said. "We're reaching out to Page, Warren, Frederick, Rockingham [counties] -- of course the city of Winchester, the city of Harrisonburg. We've had a lot of positive feedback from people outside the county."

Curry plans to keep the camper/instructor ratio at 10-1, allowing for plenty of individual time on the field. He'll coach linebackers, naturally, and one of Curry's biggest concerns is teaching proper tackling technique -- something he says he was never taught as a player.

"To teach the correct tackling techniques that are safe, you should teach not using your head in a collision, which is the only way," Curry said. "Now football is football, and you're going to get hit in your helmet -- we all know that.

"... We teach a tackling technique that keeps the head out of the tackle. You need to teach it at the youth level."

Curry estimates he suffered through between five and 10 concussions as a player -- he really doesn't know for sure.

"It wasn't an event," Curry said. "You'd come to the sideline, and it wasn't like, 'Doctor, come check me out.' It was like, 'Hey, I need some smelling salts.' You'd try to get some clarity and they'd give you some smelling salts and you'd try not to miss more than a play."

He came across the new tackling technique while coaching youth football, when he watched a video put out by Bobby Hosea's Train 'Em Up Academy based in California.

Curry is always ready to demonstrate, walking through the basic shift from a defensive player leading with their head up and striking with the facemask to moving that strike plate to under the chin, shoulder to shoulder, to protect the neck from traumatic injury.

"Coaches aren't teaching it -- coaches won't teach it," Curry said.

The reason, he suspects, is simply an ingrained suspicion of anything new and different.

For Curry, it's a lesson he's found is never too late -- or too early -- to learn.